Faux French Fellas

  • Posted on 16/11/2013
  • /Under Musique

amourettesThe masterminds behind Les Chauds Lapins are New York’s Meg Reichardt and Kurt Hoffman who formerly worked with indie celebs They Might Be Giants or the Jon Spencer Blues Explosion. The songs of chanson genius Charles Trenet – »our quintessential art-pop guy« – inspired them to found their very own rive gauche French music hall of mirrors, echoing the surrealist wit of the 20s and 30s. Their 2011 album Amourettes features the funny, cheeky and irresistibly swingin’ Je t’aime, a vocal version of Django Reinhardt’s Swing ’39 with lyrics by the unforgotten Jacques Larue. If you’re looking for the missing link between faux French fellas Pink Martini and Nous Non Plus, this is it – a folie du jour to boot, and certainly a most sexy one.

Les Chauds Lapins – Je t’aime

Sophie Desmarais

1000_201303142056428stc21_MGD_4888Yes, feast your eyes and ears on this dear FillesSourires-visitors. Sophie’s an Quebecoise, an actress who also sings in this new movie called Chasse au Godard d’Abbittibbi. See IMDB for a short description, see this YT-clip too. Set in 1968, it means that Sophie wears lots of eyeliner and looks like a cross between Francoise Hardy and Anna Karina. And she can sing-sigh like the best of ‘m. Listen to the whole soundtrack, including tracks by Les Breastfeeders and FS-fave Ariane Moffatt, here.

François & Françoise

  • Posted on 12/11/2013
  • /Under Video

The new François Ozon movie, Jeune & Jolie, features four chansons by FS favorite Françoise Hardy, among them the solemn Première rencontre from 1973. Caution: Don’t listen sans parapluie et dix mouchoirs.

Yasmine Hamdan

  • Posted on 12/11/2013
  • /Under Musique

If you know that Marc Collin produced the most recent album by Beirut-born singer Yasmine Hamdan, you understand why there’s room for her on this blog. For Monsieur Nouvelle Vague, the mastermind behind Ollano and a whole bunch of others (see an old post here) is King Midas when it comes to les filles. This new album by Yasmine is a fusion of western electronics an Arab atmospheres, just like Yasmine’s former band Soapkills (listen to a great track she re-recorded for her album). If this is Beirut by night, then it’s far from dangerous, it’s humid, sexy, tempting. This is far better than Ofra Haza or Natasha Atlas, at least in my book.
I have no clue what Yasmine’s singing about, but an expert told me ‘the songs are about what all songs are about’. But they sure don’t sound like all songs.

Deconstructing Pablo

  • Posted on 10/11/2013
  • /Under Musique

utelempIn the 70s, his verses always lay right beside the diaphragm on the bed stand: Pablo Neruda’s Collected Love Poems were the latest chic among cultivated female students, and some of them later even recognized that the Chilean Nobel Prize laureate of 1971 was hardly more than a pompous cheesemeister. German singer/ diseuse Ute Lemper obviously did not. Her brand-new album with the cheapo title Forever, erm, celebrates the works of Neruda in a quite singular manner one might call Ute-style. Lemper, who also was in charge of production, artistic concept and compositions, is undoubtedly out to transcend the poetry as well as the music. And delivers: Each and every title sounds like an expressionist exercise in speech therapy, an endless progression of blubbering, wailing, seething and Kunstlied whining, the French language opener La nuit dans l’ile additionally being garnished with an unhealthy dose of bandoneon and tango kitsch. Reportedly, Kaas chante Piaf didn’t have the hoped-for effect at Guantánamo. Probably they’ll give it another go with the Fräuleinwunder experience.

Ute Lemper – La nuit dans l’ile

The Seductive Skills of Miss Panton

  • Posted on 10/11/2013
  • /Under Musique

secondAnother Canadienne, a sexy redhead being heralded to sound »like the sweetest bird you’ll ever hear« – probably a bit too much promo praise, though we’re certainly dealing with a fille fragile to boot here. Diana Panton’s fourth album, To Brazil With Love, pays homage to bossa nova and the sounds of Baden Powell, Jobim or Marcos Valle, including also five French language versions of Brazilian song material, among them a welcome adaptation of Samba Saravah with vibraphone swing, and a classy reworking of the lesser known, but equally immortal Tu sais je vais t’aimer a.k.a. Eu sei que vou te amar, written in 1970 by Jobim and Vinicius de Moraes, with French lyrics by Georges Moustaki.

Diana Panton – Samba Saravah
Diana Panton – Tu sais je vais t’aimer

Moongaï

  • Posted on 08/11/2013
  • /Under Musique

She went to church just to listen to religious chants. He’s obessed with the Motown beats. She listened to her sister and grandma play the piano. He started playing jazz at a young age. She holds Brel, Brassens and Ferré in high esteem, he’s into modern hiphop. She looks like the china doll version of Florence Welch, he’s dressed as a gentleman gunfighter. Together they are Moongaï. They hail from St. Nazaire, Brittany, they’ve toured in England and India and you might now Eva from her guestspot on the C2C album. Their dreampop is reminiscent of Emilie Simon, of Mylene Farmer, of Florene & the Machine, of Gainsbourg (listen to Visage Pale, on their album Cosmofamille). Zombie is the first single, with a heavy heavy bassline and a surprising break. This could be big.

Laibach on the beat

  • Posted on 08/11/2013
  • /Under Musique

imagesAh, Mina Spiler. The She-Wolf of Laibach, that bunch of industrial totalitarianism-flirters, the Slovenian funnymen with shiny black jackboots. If women in uniform are your thing, turn to Mina. Never thought I’d ever hear her sing in French, but she does on a live version of Gainsbourgs steamy s&m-classic Love on the Beat (yep, that’s Bambou, bare-chested). Laibach recorded this version at Tate Modern. It’s from a brand new EP, new Laibach album’s coming up. See Mina in full regalia on this great Beatles-cover.

Laibach – Love on the beat

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